Kaelinia
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
 She has a sword. | |
| Kaelinia | |
| Real Name: | Kaelinia Tsuchai |
|---|---|
| Origin: | Magic |
| Archetype: | Scrapper |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Room for additional notes. | |
Contents |
Biography
Real Name: Various. Her legal name is Kaelinia Tsuchai. Her full name in her home culture is Kael'en Arcillium dyn Aelynius Gerrin-chai'hera nenmaetryl nelmatris abenti fylum bei ofin-taerun exedum dyn guryl Seion tenyl bei mesi spadan-iyl-arcolle et maeti confisum migurys risi dyn daerist omy-maeni emithei parsimascil chaispadum daesi dyn paeici. Don't you feel enriched for knowing that?
Race: Ardai. Or, as she puts it, "Ardai. What, you think every friggin' culture of skinny people with pointy ears calls themselves elves just because that's how it is in whatever tabletop game you played last?"
Identity: Public.
Occupation: Works as a coordinator for the department of heroism in City Hall, helping new heroes with odd requirements (you know--the 'my species can't drink anything but antifreeze, and I need to eat 46 pounds of raw fish every day!' kind) find what they need.
Citizenship: Paragon City
Place of Birth: Aelynius, Denei, on a different plane of existence.
Base of Operations: Pocket plane.
Known Relatives: Hei, Kai-Lian, and Siluvane Tsuchai.
Affiliations: None.
Former Affiliations: Freedom Factor, the Spectra Society, the Dauntless Reverie, the League of Justice.
Physical Attributes
Height: 5'1"
Weight: 120 lbs.
Eyes: Brown.
Hair: Blonde.
Personality
As a living personification of chaos, she tends to be spontaneous and not particularly fond of the law. However, she has strong morals that usually keep her on the law's good side. Usually. Her morals are somewhat complicated, but generally, she believes in not hurting enemies any more than she has to, with the exception of certain villaingroups (Malta, Vahzilok, Banished Pantheon) and most archvillains, whom she does her best to put down for good. She's fond of drinking, rarely seen relaxing without a bottle of honeymead, and also refers to herself as a 'walking pop-culture encyclopedia.' Having spent over 10 years in Paragon, she's grown quite accustomed to (and fond of) modern American culture, and tends to look down on elves who do things like use bows and dress in green as horrible embarassments.
Powers
Katana
As she's been fighting with one curved sword or another for over half a century, Kae's damn good when it comes to swordfighting. She prefers quick hits to weak spots over forceful attacks, wearing down her opponents with attrition and deliberate crippling blows. She's relatively weak, though, which puts her at something of a disadvantage against heavily-armored targets.
Dark Armor
As part of her chaos heritage, Kae can transform her entire body into a roiling cloud of elemental chaos. This makes her highly resistant to most attacks, and she can also absorb raw chaos from those around her to 'heal' herself. Being exposed to concentrated raw chaos is incredibly disorienting for most life forms, and as a result, most enemies around her often end up temporarily stupefied or insane. One benefit of being made entirely of chaos is that it's almost impossible to outright kill her... though taking enough damage could leave her inable to affect physical reality for weeks or months.
Darkness Mastery
An extension of her chaos abilities, allowing her to focus and project elemental chaos at her enemies to stun or harm them. Her most impressive ability in this area is ripping open a rift to her mother's home plane beneath her enemies, allowing the denizens to pummel them with their various creepy howling tentacles. Japanese schoolgirls, beware.
Super Jump
You could jump pretty high if you were a puffy cloud, too.
Other
Chaomancy
Kaelinia's chaomancy (not to be confused with the divination method by the same name) can best be described as knowing how to use chaotic chains of events to one's advantage, though it is not a skill granted to her by her divinity. Rather, through intense study of the weather and air currents, she has learned how to control them through subtle manipulation in order to recreate effects like tornadoes and ice slicks. It can be applied to almost anything, but weather and electricity are her specialties. However, she rarely uses these anymore--her current hero license is only for use of a katana, and she finds it difficult to do while using a sword anyway.
Character History
Pre-Paragon
(Full backstory here.) Kaelinia was the daughter of an undercover Chaos goddess and an Ardai prince, created as part of the goddess' plan to combat entropy. Her mother promptly disappeared after she was born, taking the divine half of Kae's soul with her to keep her daughter's nature from being discovered. It was only far later that Kae learned about her divinity. Her chaotic nature led her to not fit into the highly ritualistic and hierarchical Ardai society, and at the age of 20, she ran away for the nearest human settlement. After working odd jobs just to survive, she ended up enlisting with a mercenary company as their quartermaster. It was here that she got her first training with swords, though she didn't put it to use until far later, when she helped fend off an ambush on the company's encampment.
Over time, she earned the respect of the warriors and the right to accompany them into combat. When, years later, the group was destroyed in a siege, she barely escaped with her life. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, sick, broke, and desperate, she got a mage to temporarily transfer her soul into a male body in an attempt to enlist in the military (under the semi-pseudonym Kelenar, the masculine conjugation of her name), one of the few job opportunities she could find in the area. Unfortunately, the same problems that led her to not fit into Ardai society plagued her there, too; as soon as her platoon had gotten transportation to another city, she went AWOL and joined a new mercenary company, still stuck in a male body.
(gender pronouns change here, just to make things simpler for me!)
From this point on, he travelled the world as a member of various mercenary companies, trying to track down his female body when possible. After years of searching, though, he grew accustomed to being a male and gave up the search. It was during this time that he met Teletha Chaosblade, a priestess of a temple of the Lady of Chaos and the leader of a mercenary troupe based in that temple. As he'd been male for decades, it's no great surprise that the two ended up engaged. Teletha taught him the basics of chaomancy, which she'd invented herself, and the two generally were as happy together as two mercenaries can be.
But, then, Teletha died. That happens to mercenaries occasionally. Kel, heartbroken, took a break from the business of cutting off people's heads to wander around aimlessly and drink a lot of beer. During one particularly drunken night, he gave another mage-for-hire a big pile of money, made a drunken request that he still can't remember clearly, and ended up in downtown Paragon as a result, in 1994.
Paragon
Being an elf from a medieval-age society in a downtown modern city was confusing to say the least, but Kel ended up being taken in by a family. For most of the next decade, he spent his time learning how modern society works and, once he'd adapted enough, earning an honest living. It was during this period that he picked up his obsession with pop culture, from a bit too much TV.
But, then the Rikti War came around, and sitting around watching TV was no longer an option. Lacking the will--or ability, given the Rikti's overwhelming strength when compared to a guy with a sword-- to fight, Kel did his part by putting what little chaomancy he'd learned to work healing the wounded after battles. When City Hall declared that open hero registration would begin afterward, there was little question about what he should do--he'd spent enough time enjoying himself, and the Rikti war had reminded him that this world very much needed a few strong arms to help keep it in good condition.
Paragon (in-game)
Kel never had much in the way of epic storylines of his own. He was entirely too easygoing. He did, however, usually hide most of his history from his friends, merely revealing that he had been a mercenary for most of his life, and making no mention of his prior life as a woman. Around the time that he got his first new girlfriend in Paragon, a minor incident with the Knights of Artemis led Kel (along with Kyle Helsing and Kelp Plankton) to be turned into a woman. Ironically, having been a male for more than half of his life at this point--and since everybody in Paragon knew him as male--he found this to be incredibly embarassing. It probably didn't help when certain parties dragged him to Icon and put him in a miniskirt, an outfit far more 'girly' than anything he'd ever worn. Fortunately, the trio reverted to males after a few days.
Soul Auction
Shortly afterward, he began dating--and then became engaged to--Twilight Ember. At the same time, he was contacted by Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, and the Earth counterpart to his mother. She had been contacted by his mother, who was furious that Kel had left his home plane, thus almost ruining her intricate plans. Eris revealed to Kel his divine nature for the first time, and also disclosed that his mother had taken half of his soul at birth.
Having his history--particularly the fact that he was originally female--revealed so fully in public led to more than a little trouble for the Ardai. Twilight Ember, infuriated that he'd hidden something so big from her, called off their engagement. Quite a few others just avoided him.
Eris offered to return Kel's soul to him, but with a price--only if he would return to his female body and head back to his home plane, where his mother could put her plans into action. This was something that Kel, engaged and quite happy in Paragon, had no intention to do.
Finally, Kel talked Eris into giving him his soul for a trade--but she insisted that she would give anybody who was interested a chance to 'bid' for his soul before she decided who got it. This auction drew the attention of Hei Kuei Nyan, who had her own plans for Kel in mind. The bidding between Kel, Hei, and several of Kel's friends went on for days. Finally, Kelp won the soul with his bid of a pocket plane containing an infinite amount of pudding. He graciously gave the soul to Kel... who tried to use it, only to find that its divine nature couldn't safely be contained in his current, mortal body. Pissed, he returned to his home plane and, using the new skills he'd developed in the decade since he'd left, tracked down and beat the crap out of the mage who'd stolen his female body all those years ago.
Full Circle
He still didn't return to being a female just yet, though. He was still far too used to being male, even if Eris had revealed his secret. For a period of several months, he'd only return to his female body briefly, to experiment with his divine nature. It wasn't until Hei Kuei Nyan, who'd had her eye on him, began coercing him into turning female that he ever did it regularly. Finally, Hei made a bet with him--if he could stay female for an entire consecutive week, she'd leave him alone. If he couldn't, he had to go on a date with her, in female form.
Simply put, Kel lost. Over several months of intermittent dating, the two became a couple and Kel started spending less time as a male. Finally, six months after they'd started dating, Kel finally declared 'to hell with it' and went back to being a full-time woman, getting a new hero license for his female form and taking up swordfighting again for the first time in over a decade.
Around this time, Kai-Lian and Siluvane appeared in Paragon, along with dozens of other children claiming to be offspring of heroes from the future. The two, unlike their fellow travellers, didn't return to the future, as the far more chaotic nature of present-day Paragon was much healthier for them, being from Kae's chaos lineage.
About six months after that, the Kae and Hei married, taking a brief out-of-state vacation to get around same-sex marriage laws. Around the same time, she formed Spectra Society with several of her close friends.
